Archive for the 'Michael Jordan' Tag Under 'Lakers' Category

Snyder, a Lakers assistant, won't be Michael Jordan's next Charlotte Bobcats head coach. It'll be Mike Dunlap, Steve Lavin's assistant coach at St. John's University, according to the Charlotte Observer.

The Lakers might be about to lose assistant coach Quin Snyder to become head coach of the Charlotte Bobcats.

Snyder, who has impressed many in the Lakers' organization in his one year under head coach Mike Brown, interviewed again with Bobcats owner Michael Jordan on Wednesday. Former Lakers assistant Brian Shaw, who spent the past year as an associate head coach for the Indiana Pacers, is believed to prefer the Orlando Magic head job to the Bobcats' one. Longtime Jazz coach Jerry Sloan told Sam Amick of SI.com that Sloan had pulled out of consideration in Charlotte, which finished with the worst winning percentage (.106) in NBA history by going 7-59 last season.

Snyder, 45, doesn't have the NBA experience of Shaw, who was passed over as Phil Jackson's replacement when Brown was hired as Lakers head coach. But Snyder has an outstanding grasp of the NBA pick-and-roll game and connected very well with Lakers star Kobe Bryant in just one year together.

Snyder would not be the first member of Brown's staff to depart this offseason. Coaching consultant Ettore Messina has turned down the Lakers' recent efforts to keep him on staff and intends to accept the job as head coach of CSKA Moscow. Messina was an accomplished head coach overseas and previously led CSKA Moscow, but he spent the past season with the Lakers -- home and away -- advising Brown.

Another member of Brown's staff, Chuck Person, often organized the Lakers' defense the past season and could be a candidate for other head-coaching jobs. The remaining member of Brown's staff is John Kuester, who was the Detroit Pistons' head coach from 2009-11 and worked mainly with the Lakers' offense.

Kobe Bryant said last week about the possibility of passing ex-teammate Shaquille O'Neal on the NBA's career scoring chart: "It was inevitable."

It become beyond inevitable with 5:08 left in the second quarter Monday night in Philadelphia, Bryant's childhood home neighborhood where he sank a 23-footer and then soon fell into an extended embrace with longtime teammate Derek Fisher to commemorate the moment.

Bryant passed O'Neal with that shot that gave him 24 points in the game and the Lakers a 40-35 lead on the 76ers. After Bryant made it, Philadelphia coach Doug Collins immediately began aggressive double-teaming of Bryant, usually sending a second defender as soon as Bryant caught the ball and forcing the Lakers to look elsewhere for offense.

Bryant's next target on the scoring list is Wilt Chamberlain (31,419 points) -- followed by Michael Jordan (32,292), Karl Malone (36,928) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,387). Bryant, 33, hit five consecutive shots before making the one to pass O'Neal, who retired before this season to do commentary for TNT.

Of the top six scorers in NBA history, five have played for the Lakers -- the exception being Jordan.

The abbreviated training camp and compressed schedule would seem to have contributed to Bryant's feat taking on this added dimension: His game marked by far the latest in terms of games played an NBA season in the shot-clock era for anyone to score at least 40 points in a game.

Entering Tuesday night, Bryant had the previous NBA season-high 39 points Friday night vs. Golden State. In 131 NBA games that had played through Monday, no one had reached the 40-point plateau. The previous high in number of games it took for an NBA player to reach 40 points in a game to start a season was 68 games by Dirk Nowitzki on Nov. 11, 2004, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Bryant, who is in his 16th NBA season, also became the first player to score 48 or more points in his 15th season or later. Michael Jordan did it in his 14th season. As far as age goes, Bryant, 33, had the highest point output of anyone that old in a regulation-length NBA game since Jordan's 51 points at age 38 with the Washington Wizards on Dec. 29, 2001.

The Lakers are 74-34 overall in games in which Bryant scores at least 40 points.

Kobe Bryant's dunk with 3:39 left in the Lakers' Game 2 victory over New Orleans on Wednesday night extended his streak of consecutive double-figure scoring playoff games to 151, second-most in NBA history to Michael Jordan.

Bryant added a free throw later to finish with 11 points, so he still has a shot at Jordan's record of 179 consecutive double-figure scoring games -- a streak that Jordan began on Apr. 19, 1995, and continued until he retired. Bryant's streak began on June 19, 2000, and he passed Karl Malone (147 consecutive games), Shaquille O'Neal (137) and Larry Bird (136) during the last postseason.

The longest current such streak besides Bryant's belongs to Miami's LeBron James, who has 73 consecutive double-figure scoring games.

More of a realistic scenario than Andrew Bynum being traded by the Lakers to Denver is the issue that the marriage between Ron Artest and the Lakers has gotten rocky.

Although Artest has publicly disputed ESPN.com's report that he is interested in being traded, there was a further note reported by Ric Bucher that the Lakers contacted the Charlotte Hornets in an effort to trade Artest to Michael Jordan's organization for Stephen Jackson or Gerald Wallace -- with Artest disinterested in going to Charlotte.

When asked about it Wednesday in Boston after Lakers practice, Artest said: "That's a rumor? That's not my expertise. My expertise is playing defense. I can't comment on trades."

" Asked if he wanted to go to Charlotte, Artest said again: "That's not my expertise. My expertise is defense."

At least it was a new wrinkle on Artest's usual evasive tactic ("I can't remember") when he is trying to dodge any potentially controversial topic.